Brilliant, stubborn, and astonishingly far-sighted, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the chief architect of the American women's movement. Here, Harriet Sigerman presents a fascinating profile of the woman who courageously campaigned for women's absolute right to social and political equality in the 1800s. Her stands on issues such as birth control, divorce reform, greater employment opportunities, and equal wages were revolutionary and controversial then and are still debated in the political arena today. Along with her tireless crusade for equal rights, Elizabeth Cady Stanton also raised seven children, authored a history of the women's rights movement, a feminist critique of the Bible, and her autobiography. Featuring never-before-seen photos and illustrations, Elizabeth Cady Stanton brings to life one of history's liveliest and most fascinating women's rights leaders.

America's first wave of feminists—Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others—included expanded opportunities for higher education in their Declaration of Sentiments at the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in l848. By then, the first American institutions to educate women had been founded, among them, Mt. Holyoke Seminary, in l837. However, not until after the Civil War did most universities admit women—and not for egalitarian purposes. War casualties had caused a drop in enrollment and the states needed teachers. Women students paid tuition, but, as teachers, were paid salaries half that of men.

The advocates of woman suffrage and black suffrage came to a bitter falling-out in the midst of Reconstruction, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton opposed the 15th Amendment because it granted the vote to black men but not to women. How did these two causes, so long allied, come to this?

The story of how the women's rights movement began at the Seneca Falls convention of 1848 is a cherished American myth. The standard account credits founders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott with defining and then leading the campaign for women's suffrage.

In a quiet town of Seneca Falls, New York, over the course of two days in July, 1848, a small group of women and men, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, held a convention that would launch the woman's rights movement and change the course of history.